Photo courtesy of City of Westerville
With people across the country becoming more and more caught up in their electronics, it can be easy to forget to do the little things.
A lot of people have little to no contact with the people living next door. But the city of Westerville is working to change this trend by naming October Neighbor2Neighbor month.
The effort is aimed at helping neighbors to get to know and support one another.
“Neighbor2Neighbor is an initiative to inspire neighborliness in Westerville,” says Westerville Mayor Kathy Cocuzzi. “It has grown out of many observations that nowadays people are absorbed inwardly, focusing on themselves, their electronics, etc, and not outwardly, looking at those around them.”
The city has gotten a long list of Westerville organizations on board to make Neighbor2Neighbor month a success, including Westerville City Schools, the Westerville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Westerville Division of Police, Otterbein University, the Westerville Area Ministerial Association, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Mount Carmel St. Ann’s, OhioHealth, Leadership Westerville, the Westerville Area Resource Ministry and Neighborhood Bridges.
Acts of kindness will be documented on the endeavor’s Facebook page, Neighbor2Neighbor Westerville, and Instagram page, N2N Westerville. They will also be submitted to Otterbein, which is keeping a running tally, in an effort to achieve 100,000 acts of kindness. There will also be a scavenger hunt that will get neighbors to interact with each other throughout the community and compete for prizes.
“We … will be encouraging everyone to do something kind for their neighbors during this month and let us know what they have done,” says Cocuzzi. “We want to record all these neighborly acts and promote our community for its friendliness, kindness and neighborliness.”
Residents can report acts of kindness by emailing dir@n2nwesterville.org.
Jake Nerone is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
